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Re: Metrics used to evaluate Technical Writing/Publications

Subject: Re: Metrics used to evaluate Technical Writing/Publications
From: "Peter Neilson" <neilson -at- windstream -dot- net>
To: techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 2015 16:47:44 -0400

The only metric that really matters is the one mentioned here a couple of days ago... "Does it fulfill (or surpass) the needs of the customer?"

Sometimes you can fold in, "Does it help sell the product?" either for short-run considerations (making THIS sale) or longer-run (is the company continually known for good documentation).

On Thu, 10 Sep 2015 16:38:46 -0400, Jelus, Susan C. <susan -dot- jelus -at- thermofisher -dot- com> wrote:

Hi Everyone,
Technical Writing is part of the Research and Development department at my company. My manager, the Director, wants me to set up some ways to measure the effectiveness of the tech writing function. He says this will help us identify problem areas. Other functions, such as Engineering and Operations, measure things like turn-around time, on-time delivery, and number of backorders.

I'm hard-pressed to find something easily measureable for tech writing. We produce mostly documents that are more than 100 pages, such as user manuals, and we usually do it over a 3-6 month time period. Of course, we have dependencies on Engineering and other SMEs, who all have major priorities in other areas.

I've thought of measuring things like on time responses to requests for information or reviews, errors reported in publications, change requests received/implemented, product development changes requiring documentation rework... But it seems like it will be difficult to track and evaluate many of these items.

Do any of you out there use metrics? If so, what are you measuring and how is it working?

Thanks for your help.

Susan Jelus
Thermo Fisher Scientific
Logan, Utah
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Learn more about Adobe Technical Communication Suite (2015 Release) | http://bit.ly/1FR7zNW

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
To unsubscribe send a blank email to
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Send administrative questions to admin -at- techwr-l -dot- com -dot- Visit
http://www.techwhirl.com/email-discussion-groups/ for more resources and info.

Looking for articles on Technical Communications? Head over to our online magazine at http://techwhirl.com

Looking for the archived Techwr-l email discussions? Search our public email archives @ http://techwr-l.com/archives

References:
Metrics used to evaluate Technical Writing/Publications: From: Jelus, Susan C.

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